Renaming your character costs 995 Turbine Points. This seems really harsh, considering that Quest packs are about half as much. Can the renaming system please be changed? How about every 10 levels up, the character gets a free-rename coupon or something. I'm trying to use my Turbine Points to play the game, and would prefer it if this whole naming system could be changed. Also, if the the players could be informed of surnames from the get-go, that would be very helpful.

Aug 30 2013, 03:21 PM

mjk47

Turbine need to make "real" money somewhere to pay for the game's operation and development. Charging a small premium price for a service which is not essential to game play makes a lot of sense.

Sep 18 2013, 02:27 AM

Duke_Darkwood

It's not SUPPOSED to be easy like that. It's your name. At least you get to choose it yourself, rather than have it chosen for you like what happened when you were born, eh?

Aside from the fact that the name should BE a defining part of your character, I can think of TWO game-logistic reasons for the name to be something not easily or cheaply changed:

1: On any given server, every name is specifically unique. Having these names changing all the time will lead to serious problems in no time flat - including the ability to be unable to change back to a former name because someone else has it now. But most of the time, the problem will be frustration at invalid name after invalid name after invalid name.

2: The potential for abuse is too high. Aside from the idea of "stealing" an old name (allowing that person to masquerade as you, if your name was known to many people!), there would be the fact that troublemakers could just change their name at the drop of a hat, becoming harder for players to track them. Oh, was "person with this name" being disruptive and offensive? Odd, there's no longer anyone by that name on the server. Although, "person with this new name" seems to be doing the exact same things.

And these problems will crop up simply for making them cheaper - your idea of a "free rename token" every 10 levels is a disaster waiting to happen - especially if people bank them until they have eight (or nine, as can soon be the case). Plus, going back to my argument of names being a defining trait, it would be like you, in real life, changing your given name every year.

If someone wants to change their name badly enough, 995 is a small enough price to pay. But a change like this needs serious consideration - we can't have it be as easy to change names as it is to change cosmetic outfits.